My friend Chris Render, who has died from a burst aneurysm, aged 61, worked at Compendium Bookshop, in Camden, during its long heyday as London's most interesting book venue. He was also a very fine photographer whose work deserved a wider audience.

Born in Hammersmith, west London, Chris went to Hornsey and Chiswick art schools but dropped out and eventually began to work at Compendium, producing its first catalogue of books on alternative technology. Illustrated by Cliff Harper's woodcut images, the catalogue suggested a communal idyll that blended living lightly with expanded drug-enhanced vision and a utopian reworking of technology. It embodied Chris's dream of a different world.

Through the 1980s and 90s, Chris helped to steer Compendium through the vicissitudes of recession, splicing his own interests into a commercially successful project that picked up on trends in music publishing, the legacy of the Beats in contemporary letters and the growth of a new market in visual culture.

He set up a number of publishing ventures, loosely marketing his own images, as well as other people's books and work. He was a great showman, staging publicity events to maximum effect. I remember a William Burroughs signing at the shop in the early 80s, with the cadaverous hero of underground literature overwhelmed by his fans, and Chris looking on, beaming.

During that period, he took photographs of the writers and musos who came through the shop, the change of a bohemian neighbourhood into just another tourist trap, and the contingent moments of beauty in the city.

When Compendium came to an end in 2000, beaten by discounting and rentier economics, Chris moved to Glastonbury, Somerset, and helped set up Labyrinth Books. Latterly, he had begun the overdue task of organising his portfolio and presenting his work to a wider public.

He is survived by Kerry and Todd, the children of his relationship with Anna Lou; his partner, Sue, and their daughter, Abby; and his mother, Laura.